Confusing the Why with the What

Many of my life lessons and analogies come from running. Today was no different.

I recently started re-emphasizing a healthy lifestyle. This includes running more regularly. Because I am the way that I am, this means logging my various workouts. I like to keep track of what I've done so that I can measure improvement.

At one point during my run today, I cut a corner shorter by about a couple of feet. In reality, I didn't really cut it all that short. But because I am the way that I am, I think of silly things like this. I was thinking about how I could even log that. Then I thought about the extra steps I had taken in a different area and how I didn't even consider over-running what I would log. If this sounds confusing, it's probably because my mind tends to be confusing. Regardless, the point is the same. I was focusing on how to log my run.

It almost immediately hit me. This is what we can do in other areas of life as well. We begin doing a certain activity, get into a routine, so that we can grow in a certain area. But at some point along the way, we begin to focus more on what we're doing and can actually lose focus on why we're doing it.

Let's look at one spiritual application.

Do you pray? Do you read the Bible? Why do you do those things? Hopefully you do those things because you want to grow spiritually, in your walk with the Lord. You want to grow in your faith. Have you ever tracked this? Have you ever allowed prayer and/or Bible reading to become a "check-list" item? You know, something you do to say you've done it. But you don't do those things to satisfy a to-do list, right? You do them to grow. But instead of focusing on seeing that growth, you begin to focus on the activity that is meant to help you achieve your goal.

Further into my run another thought hit me. This time it was as I was taking a selfie while running. Again, I was losing sight of what mattered most. I allowed this run to become an opportunity to show people that I was running. While there is a good level of accountability this can provide, the motive what probably more of me wanting people to see that I was running.

Let's go back to that spiritual application.

Do you sit down with a Bible and cup of coffee so that Instagram or Facebook knows that you're doing your devos (short for devotionals, which is a common word used to incapsulate the idea of praying and reading the Bible)? I'm not saying it's wrong to post photos in these moments. I'm just suggesting that we check our motives.

So I encourage myself and you today. Let's not get so caught on what we're doing but remain focused on why we're doing it. It's possible to do the right things for the wrong reasons. It's also possible to do the wrong things for the right reasons. I want to do the right things for the right reasons today.